


going around in circles

by MintyMallo



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28114593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintyMallo/pseuds/MintyMallo
Summary: please don't read this, it’s a really cringe-worthy story from several years ago and I kind of hate it now. I just wanted to test the formatting on Ao3, so I posted some random thing I had saved. Don't mind this trash.
Kudos: 1





	going around in circles

**Author's Note:**

> Your last warning, don’t waste your time reading this.

Theo stared out his bedroom window. Snow whirled on the other side of the glass, the blizzard outside only worsening. He said he didn’t like the snow, but he was usually lying. The snow was the only good thing about winter. The radios only played Christmas carols, and all the plants died except the evergreens. But at least snow was good. Well, sometimes. It made it hard to see. He sighed and watched as his breath misted up the glass. Thinking about snow was pretty boring, but it was better than staring into the abyss. He was confined to his bed at the moment. He sat up in bed, wincing as his clothes brushed his wounds. He shivered, and not just because of the cold.  


He heard the heavy thunk of boots on wood outside his room before there were a couple of fast knocks. The door opened, and his mother stood there, an angry expression painting her pale face. She had clearly been outside, judging by the snowflakes that were tangled in her hair, and how red her nose was. She took the chair from his desk and sat beside his bed, still wearing the same angry expression. He could also see the worry in her eyes, but he didn’t say anything. She crossed her arms as she glared down at him.  


“Are you ready to tell me what happened?” she said. He tugged his hood over his head and dug himself deeper into the blankets. She sighed.  


“You can’t avoid it forever, Theo. You have to tell me what you saw.”  


He dug at the dirt under his nails, trying not to appear in pain, even though his head was pounding, like his brain was performing a drum solo in his head.  


“I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered as he dug himself even deeper into the bed.  


She dug her fingers into her hair, letting out another sigh. “Theo, you have to tell me. I can’t help if you don’t explain what hurt you-” She started before Theo interrupted.  


“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said again, this time slightly louder. His mother glared at him, then leaned back with a resigned look on her face.  


“We need to figure out what hurt you so we can get rid of it, and make sure it doesn’t hurt the other kids! You need to tell us,”  
Theo turned on his side to face the window, watching his mother in the reflection of the glass. His mother looked like she was about to say something, and it looked like it was gonna be forceful as well, when his aunt came into the room. She looked between the two of them, and let out a deep sigh. At this point, his mother was starting to tremble. His aunt pulled up the other chair in the room and wrapped an arm around his mother.  


“Willow, give him a break, he’s recovering. I'm sure that he will tell us eventually,” she said, casting a look at Theo that definitely said, Or else. He turned so his face was completely in the pillow, and tried not to think about it too much.  


His mother and aunt stayed for a few more minutes, just staring at him. He could feel their eyes on his back, and he just kept his face shoved into his pillow. When his mom finally left with his aunt, he let out a sigh of relief, flipping over to face the ceiling.  
He could feel razor-sharp teeth digging into his arm, the scent of blood only getting stronger. He didn’t scream, but his mind was going numb. All he could see was red-  


He slapped his hand onto his face, turning to face his window again. He refused to think about it, not even a little. He let his hand drag down his face before it hit his mattress again. Now seemed like a good time to sleep. He tugged the blankets up to his chin. He was burning from fever, but he figured it would be best to try and just sweat it out. He drifted into an uncomfortable sleep, the same nightmare he had been having for the past 3 days playing again. It started as it always did, with glowing green eyes in the woods…

Ellie knocked on the wooden door, a bowl of soup in hand. “Theo, I’ve got something for you, can you unlock the door?”  


She waited. No response.  


“Hello? Theo? If you aren’t going to do it yourself I’m going to unlock it front the outside.”  


The silence remained. Theo was probably sulking under a mound of pillows like he’d been doing for the past several days. Ellie sighed. He still hadn’t told anyone what had happened that night. It was concerning how secretive he was about it. Then again, he was unwilling to share anything about himself, so it wasn’t so unusual. However, showing up covered in blood and fainting straight after was definitely a situation that needed explaining.  


Ellie made her way down the stairs and set the now-turning-cold soup on the kitchen counter. She opened up one of the drawers and took out a dime to unlock the door with. The lock was a simple twisting mechanism, not one that needed a particular key, so a coin was good enough to open the door with.  


Going back up the stairs, she jammed the dime into the little indent of the lock and turned it, being careful not to spill the soup as she unlocked the door. Ellie pushed it open.  


“Theo, are you-”  


She stopped. The window was broken, glinting glass shards littering the floor. The blanket thrown on the floor in a messy pile. Theo was nowhere to be seen. 

___________________________________________________________________

It was two weeks after the second time Theo had gone missing. The first time, he came back covered in wounds, shirt soaked in blood and hair out of place. He had looked like he was going to die. Mom rushed over in a worry, asking if he was okay, face contorted in a mixture of anguish upon seeing her child, her baby- the only other reminder of Dad besides myself, her mind ever-so helpfully added before she swatted the thought away- hurt in that manner. Theo had insisted he was fine despite his obvious physical condition, only causing their mother more concern at what he might have been hiding. He collapsed after that, literally fainted. So much for being fine.  


How she wished she could have prevented this from happening. To be responsible for once in her life, to be able to help for once, to be enough for once. Ellie had thought studying would be the best way to make a contribution to their family, to make her mother and aunt proud of her achievements. Their family had been fitting together, Mom had gotten over her Dad’s death. Everything was good. Too good. Of course, God had to hit them with this catastrophe. Was the universe having fun watching them suffer?  


Wait, what the hell was she thinking? Was she seriously moping in sorrow right now? Being the stereotypical angsty teenager? She needed to buck up and get herself together. Ellie needed to be useful in these trying times, to find a solution, to find her little brother. An idea came to her. A search party. Searching for him aimlessly by herself in the woods would be a terrible idea, she’d probably only end up endangering herself and adding to the cloud of guilt and worry that’d been hanging over Mom’s and Aunt Carol’s heads. They had enough on their plates already, Aunt Carol had important research to do and Mom had to stay here in the town just in case anyone needed medical attention.  


She needed people with a lot of free time. And who had a lot of free time? The Teenager Squad. Yes, it was really called “The Teenager Squad.” Ellie remembered the moment Jonah Wilson had decided that it was to be the name of the little group of adolescents solely because his sister, Jessica, complained for almost an hour about how terrible that name was. To be fair, it was absolutely cringe-worthy, but Ellie hadn’t really cared. It was just a name, after all.  


She needed to call Maple. Maple would be more than willing to help with this situation. Ellie hurriedly rolled out of bed, accidentally losing her balance and falling face first on the ground, mashing her glasses up against her nose.  


“Ow,” she mumbled, pulling herself back up and rubbing the bridge of her nose. She went over to her desk, shuffled through all the papers and notes and fished out her phone from the drawer where she always kept it. Practically slamming her fingers against the cracked screen, she called her best friend and waited for her to pick up. Her breath caught in her throat just waiting in anticipation.  


“Hey, El! How’re ya doing?” Ellie finally heard Maple’s voice, the audio sounding staticy. Nothing compared to Maple’s in person voice, which was buttery and smooth, a little deep for a girl but with all the same sweetness.  


“Hey Maple, I’m alright. I need your help with something,” she breathed.  


“Oh? Well, I’d be happy to help you!” her friend exclaimed. Ever so optimistic, Ellie thought with a smile.  


“It’s about Theo. He’s gone missing-”  


A loud gasp from the phone.  


“-I’m trying to organise a search party to try and find him, and I need you to help me convince all of The Teenager Squad to join. They’re the only ones who aren’t particularly busy.”  


“I’ll make sure everyone helps. Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”  


“Thank you, Maple. You don’t know how much this means to me.”  


“It’s what friends are for,” she said, and Ellie swore she could hear a reassuring smile in her friend’s voice. She wasn’t even sure that’s possible.  


“Well, I’ll meet you at the bakery in twenty minutes.”  


“Will do.” 

Precisely thirty-seven minutes and 43 seconds later, the town’s total population of adolescents (which was not that many, only about 15,) were gathered at a small wooden table inside the local bakery. Ellie was genuinely surprised that Maple had managed to gather them all at the same time, but then again, what couldn’t Maple do? The girl had charm.  


The whole squad was treating themselves to baked goods, with Jonah stuffing his face full of chocolate chip cookies while the boys cheered him on. He was trying to reach thirteen, but the cookies were huge and he looked like he was going to throw up. Milo and Elijah didn’t seem to mind though, and they were still encouraging Jonah very loudly. Ellie sighed. From the look on Mrs. Wilson’s face, she needed to get these idiots reigned in before they got kicked out of the bakery.  


Clearing her throat, Ellie started to speak, trying to be heard over the negligible commotion that was Jonah choking on chunks of cookies, “I’m very grateful that you all have come to help me with this. It means a lot to me that you would assist me in searching for my brother.”  


Jonah whips his head around, gulping down some baked diabetes. “What now? I thought we were just meeting up to eat cookies.”  


“Literally only you thought that, Jonah,” Maple said. She turned to whisper to Ellie, “Sorry, I may or may not have phrased it funny so he just thought we were hanging out, it was the only way to get him to come.”  


Elijah spoke up, “But he’s not the only one who thought that! I did to-”  
He was shut up by Maple slapping her hand over his mouth. “We don’t need to discuss this right now,” she warned.  


At this point, Ellie had figured that maybe everyone had just come for cookies. She wasn’t going to lie, as much as she appreciated their presence, she’d rather have people who were actually here to help her cause.  


Milo raised his hand. “I'm here to help!” Maple gave him a thumbs up.  


Ellie let her face fall into her hands. Ok, well, there were those two at least.  


“Thank you. SO, anyway,” she continued, “We’ll split up into groups and look for him. I think there’s a high possibility that Theo might be somewhere in the woods-”  


“Yeah duh, we basically live in the woods. Nothing outside of town except snow and trees for miles,” Jonah mumbled through a mouthful of cookies.  
The group stayed awkwardly silent, aside from the occasional crunch of someone eating another cookie. 

Saphia broke the silence, slamming her hand on the table to get everyone’s attention. “My dog, Bruno, can track scents for miles. If you could grab a shoe, we could find him.”

Maple nodded vigorously. “Yep! That sounds good.” The rest of the teenagers gave half hearted murmurs of agreement. Ellie stood up.  
“Ok, well let’s go back to my house to find something.”

____________________________________________________________

If it wasn’t true before, Ellie was definitely regretting bringing Jonah along. Not only was he unhelpful, he was also a prick. She sighed as she turned back to face the group.  


“Are you all ready?” She asked. Everyone nodded, except Jonah who mumbled something about the woods. Ellie resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose and yell at Jonah and turned to Saphia. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Saphia nodded.

“Bruno can get us out as easily as he can get us in. Don’t worry.” Ellie grimaced, but nodded. Saphia gave Bruno a shoe, and the german shepherd gave a sniff, starting started to search for the scent. He found it soon enough, and the Teenager Squad wandered into the woods after the dog. It was still noon, so they had plenty of time. A half hour of that time was wasted following the wrong trail. Ellie was persistent though, and Saphia didn’t exactly have an excuse to leave. Jonah, however, was already bored out of his mind.

“Uggghhh, why do I have to be here again?” Ellie heard the annoyance that was Jonah’s voice grumble.

“Actually, you don’t have to be here,” Ellie stated snappishly, becoming fed up with his constant whining. She’d be hearing his voice in her nightmares at this point. Biting her lip in an attempt to restrain her irritation, she forced herself to return her focus to Bruno. 

Jonah gave an exaggerated noise of exasperation. “Well, why are you even still searching for him? He probably just ran off, does it really matter?” He snorted. “I doubt he even cares about you.”

Ellie felt her blood pressure sky rocket. Did Jonah really care that little? Sure, he was an asshole of a human and probably only came for the cookies, but to stoop so low as to openly express his indifference towards her brother’s disappearance was another level. She felt her composure slipping, fingers itching to curl up into a fist and just straight up knock one of Jonah’s teeth out with a punch. 

“Don’t. Make. Assumptions,” Ellie muttered through gritted teeth. 

“Maybe he got tired of being in this boring ass town and decided to go live like a stupid hermit in the woods,” Jonah remarked. 

Oh, that was it. Jonah had crossed the line. Ellie was about to spin around and pound his face in, but Maple quickly rested a hand on her shoulder as if she could read her thoughts. She stopped, feeling her face flush for a different reason than being absolutely furious. Ellie let out the breath she had been holding. Although what Jonah had said was completely uncalled for, it might not be the greatest idea to cause him physical harm. 

“If you don’t think my brother’s life is worth this, then feel free to leave,” she said.

Jonah noticeably stiffened, then sighed. “Fine, but you know I'm right.” 

Ellie groaned, but ignored his comments. She made a mental note to never invite Jonah for anything concerning important matters again.


End file.
